AWS launches DocumentDB and gives open source the middle finger - Do you Agree?

Today Amazon launched DocumentDB with MongoDB 3.6 compatible API. This is a fully managed service and is intended to be a drop in replacement for MongoDB. Also, AWS has long been accused of taking the best open-source projects and re-using and re-branding them without giving back to those OSS communities.

MongoDB's founder says:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so it’s not surprising that Amazon would try to capitalize on the popularity and momentum of MongoDB’s document model. However, developers are technically savvy enough to distinguish between the real thing and a poor imitation. MongoDB will continue to outperform any impersonations in the market.

What do you think? Are you going to build your future apps using DocumentDB?

I don't see why not one would build on documentDB? We can't fight the "ego" fight for MongoDB owners. Good luck to those who fight for brands even in OSS ecospace. They have to defend their baby and not use the OSS developers to do that for them. Amazon did nothing illegal. They didn't violate any GPL or anything.

Amazon AWS is the place where big players go for their cloud needs. So if documentDB is suitable for those needs then why would anyone want to use mongo? If Microsoft comes with something better on Azure, then again why not?

As long as it's open source, sure, anyone should make imitation or whatever they want to serve their customers.

It's only natural that they do. Some big companies see the potential of open source for themselves and have found ways to help and benefit from it, like Microsoft. Others just want to get a fast growing big piece of the pie, until the whole pie is for them and them only ;-)

And, as others have said above, many customers want this. There is still a huge number of companies that are afraid of "open" in general. They want the benefits, but not with an open door. So they want to pay for private clouds with proprietary software and then sleep comfy at night